“Oh, don't!” she exclaimed, “don't!”
Mr. Riddle went out.
“There, there, ma'am,” she said, “I hedn't no right ter speak, and ye fair worn out.” She drew her gently into a chair. “Set down, ma'am, and don't ye stir tell supper's ready.” She brushed her eyes with her sleeve, and, stepping briskly to my bed, bent over me. “Davy,” she said, “Davy, how be ye?”
“Davy!”
It was the lady's voice. She stood facing us, and never while I live shall I forget that which I saw in her eyes. Some resemblance it bore to the look of the hunted deer, but in the animal it is dumb, appealing. Understanding made the look of the woman terrible to behold,—understanding, ay, and courage. For she did not lack this last quality. Polly Ann gave back in a kind of dismay, and I shivered.
“Yes,” I answered, “I am David Ritchie.”
“You—you dare to judge me!” she cried.
I knew not why she said this.
“To judge you?” I repeated.
“Yes, to judge me,” she answered. “I know you, David Ritchie, and the blood that runs in you. Your mother was a foolish—saint” (she laughed), “who lifted her eyebrows when I married her brother, John Temple. That was her condemnation of me, and it stung me more than had a thousand sermons. A doting saint, because she followed your father into the mountain wilds to her death for a whim of his. And your father. A Calvinist fanatic who had no mercy on sin, save for that particular weakness of his own—”